Constructive Conflicts - Softcover

Louis Kriesberg Bruce W. Dayton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 813092112X ISBN 13: 9788130921129

Publisher: VIVA BOOKS PRIVATE LIMITED, 2013

This comprehensive analysis of all kinds of social and political conflicts reveals an important, but neglected truth: conflicts often are waged constructively. Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution makes it clear how that can occur at each stage of a conflict's course from emergence, escalation, de-escalation, termination, and finally, to resolution. Kriesberg compares and synthesizes a wide variety of theoretical approaches, drawing from the social sciences, especially sociology, political science, anthropology, and social psychology, but also from the newer interdisciplinary fields of conflict resolution, peace studies, feminism, and security studies. Case studies and quantitative data about a wide variety of conflicts are used, including community and labor management conflicts, class and political revolutionary struggles, and gender-related struggles in small and large-scale settings. Kriesberg gives particular attention to major inter-state and inter-ethnic conflicts. These include the American Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and its transformation, and the tranformations of the Israeli-Arab conflicts. Drawing on past and current theory, research, and practice, Constructive Conflicts presents a systematic and coherent approach to understanding how a wide variety of struggles can be waged constructively in a new global context.

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About the Author:

Louis Kriesberg is professor emeritus of sociology and Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Social Conflict Studies at Syracuse University. He is the founding director of the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts and past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

Bruce W. Dayton is associate professor of conflict transformation and the executive director of the CONTACT Peacebuilding Program at the School for International Training.

Review:

The fourth edition of Kriesberg and Dayton's classic study of social conflicts includes a rich array of relevant case material and an updated overview of changing conflict dynamics including the tools and strategies available to today's practitioners. This sweeping and comprehensive study explores conflict phenomena from every possible angle, with particular attention to the origins and cycles of the most destructive conflicts and the variety of roads available for conflict termination. Its lucid and accessible presentation make the volume well-suited as a core text for coursework in conflict resolution as well as a practitioners' handbook of the ways in which conflict parties, as well as third parties, can deal with conflict constructively.

(Chester A. Crocker, James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University)

The mass protests, resulting violence and intergroup tensions within communities around the world this past year have made this fourth edition of Constructive Conflicts an urgently needed addition to dispute resolution literature. The authors have reshaped the relevant theory and rigorous analysis of past editions, building in the learning from recent events and situations. The result is successful, with the objective of improving the understanding and decisions of political leaders, non-governmental actors, academics and students of conflict management. Of special interest is the new Chapter 10, which recognizes that 'the ‘end’ of conflict simply marks its transformation from one state to another.' It identifies the outcome conditions, conflict sequences and post-agreement consequences that shape the new post-conflict relationships, and offers key guides to help decision makers and practitioners in designing a more constructive future for disputing parties. Conflict management practitioners will want this book as a handy reference on their bookshelf to help frame strategies that will assure better outcomes for their clients.

(John Murray, senior consultant, CMPartners, LLC)

Any doubt about the social nature of conflict will be dispelled by Constructive Conflicts. The fourth edition gives us an updated version of Louis Kriesberg's landmark work, placing social conflict in multiple contexts of history, politics and institutional dynamics. Professor Kriesberg's new collaboration with Bruce Dayton adds freshness to a book that counts among the foundational classics of the field.

(Beth Roy, peace and conflict studies, University of California, Berkeley)

Bringing together an accurate understanding of conflict and its resolution is a feast of significant proportions. Louis Kriesberg has improved on his already excellent volume. His grasp of established research and new understandings is superb, and the book is a must read for any scholar and student in the emerging field of conflict resolution.

(Andrea Bartoli, Seton Hall University)

I wish I had had this book when I began my study of social conflict. (Gene Sharp, senior scholar and founder, Albert Einstein Institution)

Kriesberg and Dayton have done it again! Very rich, very social, very constructive, deep and broad; a MUST in the field of conflict transformation! (Johan Galtung, professor of peace studies; founder, TRANSCEND: A Network for Conflict Transformation By Peaceful Means)

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